Military

Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM)
Malaysian Mujahideen Movement

The Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia KMM] or Malaysian Mujahideen Movement, is a radical group. It envisages the creation of a Daulah Islamiyah Nusantara, a pan-regional Islamic state, comprising Malaysia, Indonesia and southern Philippines. The Indonesian-led Jemaah Islamiyah group has added another country, Thailand, to Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia's pan-regional Islamic state. It has talked about forming an Islamic state comprising southern Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and southern Philippines. The KMM favors the overthrow of the Mahathir government and the creation of an Islamic state comprising Malaysia, Indonesia, and the southern Philippines. Malaysian authorities believe that smaller, more violent, extremist groups have split from KMM. Malaysian police assert that three Indonesian extremists, one of whom is in custody, have disseminated militant ideology to the KMM.

Zainon Ismail, a former mujahid in Afghanistan, established KMM in 1995. Nik Adli Nik Abdul Aziz, currently detained under Malaysia's Internal Security Act (ISA), assumed leadership in 1999. He is the son of Nik Aziz Nik Mat, who by 2003 was the chief minister of Kelantan, an Islamic stronghold in northern Malaysia. Malaysia's main opposition, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) Party, controlls the two Malaysian northeastern states of Kelantan and Terengganu. Nik Aziz criticized Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's government for detaining his son under the ISA, claiming that Nik Adli's arrest was politically motivated. Nik Adli Nik Aziz, 34, was appointed as leader of the Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia (KMM) at a meeting attended by 12 of its members in Kampung Seri Aman, Puchong in early 1999. while studying in Pakistan, Nik Adli made frequent visits to Afghanistan even after the Russian troops had already left that country.

Malaysian police assess the KMM to have 70 to 80 members. The Malaysian police continued to investigate more than 200 suspected Muslim militants throughout 2002.

The amount of external aid that KMM receives is largely unknown, and KMM is believed to be probably self-financing.

The KMM is reported to have networks in the Malaysian states of Perak, Johor, Kedah, Selangor, Terengganu, and Kelantan. They also operate in Wilayah Persukutuan, the federal territory comprising Kuala Lumpur. According to press reports, the KMM has ties to radical Indonesian Islamic groups and has sent members to Ambon, Indonesia, to fight against Christians.

Malaysia is currently holding 48 alleged members of the KMM and its more extremist wing under the ISA for activities deemed threatening to Malaysia's national security, including planning to wage a jihad, possession of weaponry, bombings and robberies, the murder of a former state assemblyman, and planning attacks on foreigners, including US citizens. Several of the arrested militants have reportedly undergone military training in Afghanistan, and some fought with the Afghan mujahidin during the war against the former Soviet Union. Others are alleged to have ties to Islamic extremist organizations in Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Malaysian government is very worried about the Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia (KMM), whose members have trained in Afghanistan. In September 2000, Malaysian authorities took 10 members of the Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia (KMM), a militant group accused of a spate of robberies and at least one murder, into custody under the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA) that allowed indefinite detention.

By August 2001 investigations were tying the group, which police said had more than 50 members, to a series of unsolved crimes. These included bombings in the port city Klang in 2000, the planting of explosive devices at a Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur, and the killing of a provincial assembly legislator in the northern state of Kedah in November 2000, a raid on a police station's arsenal in Kedah and robberies of banks and shops.

Nine of the men detained in 2000 under the Internal Security Act for two years had their detention order renewed for another two years in 2002, accused of links to the militant Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia. Other citizens were likewise detained without trial. The police and the mainstream media repeated that these were so-called "KMM" members. Neither the police nor their master, the Minister of Home Affairs, were bothered that they inconsistently called the "KMM" first "Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia" (Malaysian Mujahideen Group) and then "Kumpulan Militan Malaysia" (Malaysian Militant Group). The highest court in Malaysia-the Federal Court-ruled in September 2002 that the ISA detention of five pro-reform activists arrested on April 10, 2001, was illegal. In October 2002 the court told the Malaysian parliament that its accusation of bank robbery against the Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia was false.